Hussein Chalayan for J.Brand

[droogist]

Hussein Chalayan designed a capsule collection for jeansmakers J.Brand, which launched this week. There are only three styles thus far, named the "Beau," the "Circuit," and the "Legging", pictured below:

nytimes.com

I wasn't able to find many pictures online, but from the looks of it the jeans feature typical Chalayan trademarks like curved and displaced seams. (He's been making denim pieces like this for his own collections for at least 10 years now, but this collaboration seems have resulted in a much sexier fit.)

There's a cutely self-referential promotional video on his website, here (it shows a model wearing the jeans while visiting his exhibit at the Design Museum in London http://www.husseinchalayan.com/#/videos.2009.2009_jbrand/

 

[Scott]

seems odd this overt sexiness from chalayan...usually a bit more raw his sense of sexuality .not to mention how much that particular pair looks like every other 'trendy' jean shape. couldn't he have just a denim line for his own label? like you said,he's been working with denim since the late 90's and i loved those pieces.

 

[kiddokiddo]

This def a head-scratcher for me. Need to see more

 

[Scott]

i should say his sense of sexiness has always been rather asexual.

 

[droogist]

seems odd this overt sexiness from chalayan...usually a bit more raw his sense of sexuality .not to mention how much that particular pair looks like every other 'trendy' jean shape. couldn't he have just a denim line for his own label? like you said,he's been working with denim since the late 90's and i loved those pieces.

Maybe, but that would also require a considerable investment. Presumably, the advantage of working with J.Brand is that they already have the apporpriate manufacturing and distribution operations in place, which would allow him to sell the jeans at a lower price point that otherwise. Not to mention the additional name recognition and publicity that usually follow from this sort of thing... I think these considerations are what motivates a lot of these high/low (or rather, high/mid) collaborations. To use an obvious example, Rei Kawakubo can easily make piqué polo shirts on her own, but it still made sense to collaborate with Fred Perry.

 

[droogist]

i should say his sense of sexiness has always been rather asexual.

I think this may have been the case in the past, but his last few collections have been looking very overtly sexy, don't you think?

 

[runner]

fashionsnap.com

 

[runner]

the circuit (the slight banana legged ones)

 

[droogist]

Ah, more pictures - thanks a lot runner! (It's odd that good pics are so hard to come by - I'd have thought that either Barneys or J Brand themselves would have had some up by now, but no.)

The jeans are looking very sober...

 

[tricotineacetat]

in terms of washing and detailing, they actually don't look too different from what he was doing already in his mainline men's/women's and secondary line, when it was still produced by Gibo. Having said that, I don't see much added expertise and specialness in these designs... certainly they do not stand out as particularly eye catching or note-worthy to me...

 

[Scott]

^that's how i kind of feel as well. i mean i understand what you're saying droog,but i also feel there's always still something distinctly chalayan about what he's doing now. this i can't see it.